Campaign for General Administrative Reforms

The Moderates campaigned on the following grounds:

(i) Indianisation of government service: on the economic grounds that British civil servants got very high emoluments while inclusion of Indians would be more economical; on political grounds that, since salaries of British bureaucrats were remitted back home and pensions paid in England (all drawn from Indian revenue), this amounted to economic drain of national resources; and on moral grounds that Indians were being discriminated against by being kept away from positions of trust and responsibility.

(ii) Call for separation of judicial from executive functions.

(iii) Criticism of an oppressive and tyrannical bureaucracy and an expensive and time-consuming judicial system.

(iv) Criticism of an aggressive foreign policy which resulted in annexation of Burma, attack on Afghanistan and suppression of tribals in the North-West—all costing heavily for the Indian treasury.

(v) Call for increase in expenditure on welfare (i.e., health, sanitation), education—especially elementary and technical—irrigation works and improvement of agriculture, agricultural banks for cultivators, etc.

(vi) Demand for better treatment for Indian labour abroad in other British colonies, where they faced oppression and racial discrimination.